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John was a life-long resident of Beverly. He was baptized on 9 May 1675 at the First Church there.1 He was a turner, but also referred to specifically as a chairmaker. His estate inventory shows he made at least tables, spinning wheels and beds, but his bread and butter was likely inexpensive chairs.
He married about 1697-98 to Elizabeth, but there isn't a record of it or evidence of her birth family. Her age at death and the chronology of her children's births put her birth about 1675. In 1710, John's father Samuel sold his real estate to his sons.2 John's oldest brother Samuel, 3rd, was given the land under his house, among other parcels. Joseph was given land and Daniel was given their parents' homestead and other parcels. The deed for John's gift either wasn't indexed or wasn't recorded, but he was given the part of his grandparents' homestead set off to his father in 1695, which included their house. This was on what is now Cabot Street directly across from the First Church. It's likely he settled there after he married about 1697-8. Samuel, 3rd, married in 1690 and established himself in his own house on his father's land. John was the second son, so it's reasonable he would be given the other house when he started a family.
John didn't write a will. The following is his estate inventory:3
the wareing cloaths of all sorts whith hatt nd shoes at £10 - 2 s all £10-02-00
To 8 yards of Garlick hollon lining at 4 s pr yd 01-12-00
To one yoke of steers at £10 & two cows at £7 ech £14 24-00-00
To 15 sheep at 15s pr £11-5s & 1 hefer coming 2 years at £3 14-05-00
To 1160 shaved clabords at £6-10s pr thousand 07-10-00
To flex in bundels at 7s & one pare of cart wheels hoops & boxes & tow carts at 40s all 02-07-00
To 1 draft chain at 12s & 1 cops & pin at 3s 00-15-00
To 1 iron crow at 7s & 1 spade at 4s & 1 plow & irons 5s 00-16-00
To 1 scith & sneed & irons 5s & 1 set of hors tackling 7s 00-12-00
To 1 swine at 20s & 1 ditto at 25s & one hors at £6 08-05-00
To 6 chair bits & stocks 6s all & 1 inch 1/4 [prob. an auger] at 2s 00-08-08
To 1 hand saw 3s & 1 old broad ax 3s & 1 frame saw 18d 07-06-00
To 1 large frame saw 14s & 1 ditto very small 1s 00-15-00
To 1 ringed beetle & 1 iron wedge 4s & 1 hatchet at 2s-6d 00-06-06
To 1 nail hammer 1s & 1 lathing hammer 18d & 1 small gimblet & 1 small hammer at 8d both 00-03-02
To 2 turning chissels at 3s & 2 ditto at 18d 04-06-00
To 2 turning gouges 2s & 5 tools for making heels & the blocks to them 9s & 1 old adze at 1s 00-12-00
To 1 shave 2s & bung boarer 1s & 1 [tur.?] bill 1s 00-04-00
To 1 rasper 18d & 1 inch auger 1s & piece of iron 4d 00-02-10
To 2 rabbitting plains & stocks 2/ & 1 three square file & 1 tap boarer 2s & 1 chissell 8d & 1/2 a cord of poplar timber 10s 00-14-08
To 11 2 backed new chairs at 2s-6d 01-07-06
To 9 2 backed new chairs without bottoms at 18d 00-13-06
To rungs & backs for chairs & stocks & spokes for spinning wheels & other stuff prepared in the shop 15s 00-15-00
To 36 bundles of flags [rushes] for chairs at 10s all 00-10-00
To a pigen nett & roper 10s & one fether bed and bolster wt £57 at 2s pr £5-14s & the curtains bedsteed & cord tester head cloath & under bed 38s 08-02-00
To 2 sheets at 18s both & one quilt at 20s 01-18-00
To one fether bed & bolster wt £64 at 20d pr 05-06-08
To the bedsteed cord and under bed at 8s all 00-08-00
To 1 old coverled & 2 old sheets at 20s all 01-00-00
To 1 woolen rugg at 30s & 4 chairs at 18d pr 01-16-00
To 1 larg looking glass at £2-15s & small pare of iron dogs 2s 02-17-00
To one long table & form 5s & 1 lignum [vity? meaning vitae] morter & brass pestle at 2s & chest of drors at 6s 00-13-00
To 1 square table 3s & putert 4 platers & 9 plates wait £25 at 3s-6d pr £4-7s-6d 04-10-06
To puter 3 platers 3 basons & 3 plates wt £14 at 3s pr 02-02-00
To puter platers plates & basons wt £11 at 2s-8d pr 01-09-04
To 1 pare of stilyards 9s & p pare of brass scales 6s 00-15-00
To puter £3 at 3s-8d & ditto 4 spoons at 5d pr 20d 00-09-08
To one fether bed bolster & 2 pillows wt £69 at 2s pr 06-18-00
To one fether bed wt £45 at 20d 03-15-00
To 1 bedstead & cord curtains under bed tester & head clo 01-10-00
To 1 woolen rugg 25s & 1 coverled 7s & 2 old sheets 5s 01-17-00
To 2 rag coverled 6s & 1 trundelbed steed & cor at 6s 00-12-00
To 1 pare of tongs & fire shovel at 2s both 00-02-00
To 1 grid iron 18d & 1 frying pan 1s 00-02-06
To two iron skilits at 3s ech & 1 bemetle scillit 1s 00-01-00
To brass morter 2s-6d & iron kitle 3s & 1 iron pot & hooks 10s 00-15-06
To 1 old iron kitle 1s & one fire lock at 18s & 1 looking glas 7s 01-06-00
To one spitt at 5s-6d & one warming pan at 2s 00-07-06
To one old clock at £4 & one old small table at 2s 04-02-00
To one old square table 4s & 1 old joyner work chest 3s 00-07-00
To 1 old chest of drors 10s & 1 frame for an oval table 4s 00-14-00
To 9 old chairs at 18d pr 13s-6 & 1 chair at 2s-6d 00-16-00
To 2 old chairs at 18d pr 3s & 1 pare of iron dogs at 4s 00-07-00
To 1 old culender 1s & one Bible at 30s & 2 other books 2s 01-12-00
To 1 old long table cloath at 8s & 1 ditto at 6s 00-14-00
To 1 small frow 1s & 1 case of 13 botles 28s 01-09-00
To sider cask and dry cask at 24s 01-04-00
To one large glass botle at 2s & one augher 2s 00-03-00
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the total sum of the personal estate £138-14-10
Eliz Corney
Robert Woodberry
Benja Balch
Antho Wood
apprizers
May 22d 1734
Then Eliz Corney adminstr made oath to ye truth of this inventory & what more coms to knowledge to give acct thereof
Among his own furniture is a frame for an oval table. There are more elaborately furnished beds in his inventory than what would normally be found in such a household. Among the most valuable items in the inventory of personal goods was 8 yards of "garlix" (Gorlitz) holland linen. This was a fine fabric (although usually used for clothing and sheets), and with the appearance of tester beds with curtains, valences and head cloths, he may have constructed and furnished these for sale as well.
The inventory and estate division shows John had extensive real estate holdings. His own house and barn were on eighteen acres of land. Probaby nearby was an "old shop" and a corn barn. A second house was occupied and give to his son Benjamin, No land is mentioned with it. A third "old" house and two acres of land with had been bought from "Hoskins." This was the property of Roger Haskins, which John bought from his heirs on 1 June 1714.4 It shows on a map of Beverly land and house owners in 1700,5 and Samuel Corning had a house lot to the south. This property went to John's son Andrew. A "pot house" may be where his son Ezra worked and is listed following the Haskins property and may have been on it. Ezra was a potter and died several years earlier without any real estate of his own. Other land parcels were wood lots, meadow and common rights in Beverly's woodland and pastures.
Rev. Hale of Beverly very likely refers to John's wife when he recorded the death of widow Elizabeth Corning on 9 December 1753 at the age of 76.6 This is confirmed by John Corning's widow being declared non compos mentis in October of that year.7 If this death record is accurate, she was born in 1677 (if born after 9 December, then the year was 1678). There is information circulating on the internet that she was Elizabeth Edwards, born about 1679 and died in 1747. No reason or source information is given. The dates are incorrect and the Edwards families living in Essex County at the right time are well-enough documented to eliminate her being among them. John Edwards and Mary Solart had a daughter Elizabeth born on 1 April 1671. Nothing further is known of her, but if she was Mrs. Corning, she would have been 82, not 76, when she died. More significant is that she would have been four years older than John, which was very unusual for first marriages of young adults in New England in the 17th century. Mrs. Corning had her last known child in 1719. Women at that time very rarely had children after their mid 40s. The 1677 birth year fits more comfortably in this case than 1671, and it indicates a more normal age of about 20 or 21 when she married than 26 or 27.
Children of John Corning and Elizabeth:8
i. John, b. 10 Apr. 1699, d. 24 Apr. 1714
ii. Benjamin, b. 28 (prob. May) 1701
iii. Joshua, b. 5 Nov. 1703
iv. Ezra, b. 22 Mar. 1704/05
v. Malachi, b. 4 Dec. 1706
vi. Nathan, b. 11 Mar. 1711, prob. the unnamed child in the vital records who d. 27 Mar. 1712
vii. Andrew, b. 26 Mar. 1715
viii. Robert, b. 19 Nov. 1719
vital records sources: John's birth is in Vital Records of Beverly, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849, Vol. I (Births) (Topsfield, MA: Topsfield Historical Society, 1907), 89, "9:3m:1675," in turn taken from a First Parish Untarian record; his death is in Vol. II (Marriages and Deaths) (Topsfield, MA: Topsfield Historical Society, 1907), 407, "a[ged] about 59." Elizabeth's death is on the same page, taken from "P. R. 1," which refers to Rev. Hale's death records. She is called a widow with no further identification.
1.
2. Essex Co., MA, deeds, 23:223, 224; 24:126, 127, 224.
3. Essex Co., MA, probate file 6372.
4. Essex Co., MA, deed 28:26
5. Sidney Perley, "Beverly in 1700," Essex Institute Historical Collections, vol. 55 (Salem, MA: Essex Institute, 1919).
6. See vital records sources.
7. These documents are in John's probate file.
8. Vital records of Beverly, Massachusetts, to the end of year 1849, vol. 1 (Topsfield, MA: Topsfield Historical Society, 1906); Vital records of Beverly, Massachusetts, to the end of year 1849, vol. 2 (Topsfield, MA: Topsfield Historical Society, 1907).